It’s easier to chat at a matinee, I find, perhaps because there is something subversive about sitting in a dark auditorium during the day watching people pretending to be other people.

There’s a feel of the night time about it, as if afternoon audiences are all complicit in the feeling of “bunking off”.

It’s also rather nice and civilised not to have the pressure of rushing for the last bus or equivalent.

That matinee time

Times vary. I’ve been at The Yard at 1pm, Southwark Playhouse at 3.30pm, the Orange Tree at 4pm, the Etcetera Theatre at 12.30pm.

Above The Stag does early shows (matinee-ish) on a Sunday at 6.30pm. The Omnibus Theatre is often at 4pm.

Some theatres insist on 2.15pm which seems perverse. I’m not even going to mention the midnight “matinee” at the Globe.

Play your cards right, synchronise your watches, and hope the trains and buses are running, and you can have many a cultural day around London. You might even save a bit of money!

The matinee and me

I like matinees because they allow me to get to, or consider going to, corners of London like Clapham, Camden, Highgate, Islington, Hornchurch, Bromley, Honor Oak and Penge.

If I’m truthful, theatres which are strictly evenings only are a pain, and in some cases I may never visit. Much better for me to be a daytime traveller, where possible.

I appreciate some theatres cannot afford the expense of opening their spaces for daytime visitors, and that sometimes it just isn’t practical. I’ll come to you if I can (The Hope in Islington, the New Diorama in Camden are just two examples), but if you’re out in the far corners of outer London, it’s harder.

I’d like to shout out to all the theatres big and small which have been so welcoming in afternoons and early shows during this year of theatrical adventures. It’s been a blast.

I hope to visit many more of you in 2020, and to meet many more interesting people who like to spend their daytimes watching stage shenanigans (and the companies who perform for us). People like Alison and Yvonne, Julie and Mark, Howard and Gwen, Malcolm and Mark, Judy and Laura, Toby’s mum, Jenny and Sue …